Girl sues school after fall for 'letting her get drunk'

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Amy St Johnston suffers from partial paraplegia and walks with the aid of crutches.

She was 16 and studying at Oundle School, near Peterborough when she got drunk at a Valentine's Day ball and fell 15 feet from her first-floor window.

Miss St Johnston, now a 20-year-old classics student at Selwyn College, Cambridge, is demanding £300,000 damages from the school claiming a drinking culture fostered among its pupils was the primary cause for the 2005 accident.

Her writ, filed at the High Court said that the £22,800-a-year Oundle school failed in its duty of care by leaving her in the room while it was "known she was under the influence of alcohol".

It also states that the window she fell from opened to 12 inches, which is three times the legal maximum.

According to the writ, she said that before the ball she had consumed "a combination of alcoholic drinks".

When teachers noticed she was walking unsteadily, she was sent to "cool off", but the writ alleges she then returned to the ball.

Staff later confirmed she had been drinking and took her back to her room. Left there, the writ says, she leaned out of the window and fell.